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Click or tap on the picture above to access the trailer for Tracey Deer’s new film, Beans
Flat out VanRamblings’ favourite film at VIFF 2020 — along with Jennifer Abbott’s new documentary, The Magnitude of All Things — writer-director Tracey Deer’s new film, Beans, is a poignant, wrenching, heartrending, gut-punch of a film, the first narrative feature to focus on 1991’s Oka Crisis on Québec’s Kahnawake reserve, the story told through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl (the ‘Beans’ of the title) whose family, friends and neighbours lived through the violent 78-day conflict on Mohawk land, with young Kiawentiio embodying, with beyond-her-years wisdom, and forceful determination, director Deer’s own experience as a young girl. An absolute knock-out of a film that had me in tears throughout, and as I say above, a must-see.
VanRamblings’ review of The Magnitude of All Things may be found here.
Another film that has emerged as one of VanRamblings’ favourites is the Serbia/Croatia/Slovenia/Bosnia and Herzegovina co-production, Father, about which Taste of Cinema’s David House writes …
“unsettling, a bleak and heartbreaking tale of the struggle of a father, Nikola, to regain custody of his children from a corrupt Serbian bureaucracy determined to separate the children from their family. With a powerful, quiet, understated, award-worthy performance from Goran Bogdan as Nikola, whose love and devotion to his family emerges as a drama of tender devastation, that tells its story with an unblinking neorealist simplicity redolent of the plainspoken purity of Vittorio De Sica.
In addition, Father offers a damning critique of an uncaring Eastern European government, as well as a rallying cry for those who fall through the cracks. A film filled with gentle humanity, and an unquenchable decency, courage and perseverance, Father is a spare, unadorned film, with as touching a story as you’ll see at VIFF 2020. Recommended.
More Taste of Cinema VIFF 2020 reviews may be found by clicking here.
Finally for today, a few VIFF 2020 reviews written by Kinetoscope film critics, the acclaimed Jason Chen and Robert Snow.
My Salinger Year | Opening night film Berlinale 2020 | Kinetoscope review by Jason Chen
My Prince Edward | Best New Director Hong Kong 20 | Kinetoscope review by Jason Chen
The Reason I Jump | Audience Award, World Documentary Competition, Sundance 2020 | Kinetoscope review by Robert Snow
A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s an Alcoholic | Kinetoscope review by Jason Chen
